[Numpy-discussion] Numpy and PEP 343

[Travis Oliphant]

Tim Hochberg wrote:

> We may want to reconsider this at least partially. I tried 
> implementing a few 1-argument functions two way. First as a table 
> lookup and second using a dedicated opcode. The first gave me a 
> speedup of almost 60%, but the latter gave me a speedup of 100%. The 
> difference suprised me, but I suspect it's do to the fact that the x86 
> supports some functions directly, so the function call gets optimized 
> away for sin and cos just as it does for +-*/. That implies that some 
> functions should get there own opcodes, while others are not worthy. 
> This little quote from wikipedia lists the functions we would want to 
> give there own opcodes to:
>
>    x86 (since the 80486DX processor) assembly language includes a stack
>    based floating point unit which can perform addition, subtraction,
>    negation, multiplication, division, remainder, square roots, integer
>    truncation, fraction truncation, and scale by power of two. The
>    operations also include conversion instructions which can load or
>    store a value from memory in any of the following formats: Binary
>    coded decimal, 32-bit integer, 64-bit integer, 32-bit floating
>    point, 64-bit floating point or 80-bit floating point (upon loading,
>    the value is converted to the currently floating point mode). The
>    x86 also includes a number of transcendental functions including
>    sine, cosine, tangent, arctangent, exponentiation with the base 2
>    and logarithms to bases 2, 10, or e
>    
> <http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=aal3fk2ck8cuc?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=E+%28mathematical+constant%29&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc04b>. 
>
>
>
> So, that's my new proposal: some functions get there own opcodes (sin, 
> cos, ln, log10, etc), while others get shunted to table lookup (not 
> sure what's in that list yet, but I'm sure there's lots).
>
For the same reason, I think these same functions should get their own 
ufunc loops instead of using the default loop with function pointers.

Thanks for providing this link.  It's a useful list.

-Travis